The Crumbling Difference Between Wrong and Right
by Avelera
Summary: A series of loosely related one-shots featuring Harvey Dent in his finals days before becoming Two-Face.
1. A Fair Question

Story title taken from Counting Crow's song "Round Here", one of the inspirations for these stories.

* * *

**Chapter Title:** A Fair Question

**Author:** Avelera

**Universe:** Nolanverse, reference made to DCAU-verse.

**Rating:** PG-13 for some suggestiveness.

**Characters/Pairings:** Harvey/Rachel  
**Word Count: **1,034  
**Warnings:** Dark Knight foreshadowing and potential spoilers.  
**Summary:** Harvey and Rachel share an intimate moment. Foreshadowing for certain events in The Dark Knight. All drabbles originally posted at "We (Still) Believe in Harvey Dent" on Livejournal.

* * *

"What would you do if anything ever happened to me?" Rachel said, her head resting on Harvey's shoulder as they lay side-by side on the bed, the flush of their recent lovemaking cooling on their skin.

"You know I'd never let anything happen to you," he said, nuzzling against her neck.

She pulled away, turning onto her side to face him, a thoughtful frown on her lips, "I'm serious. This is Gotham City, anything could happen, and it's not as if I don't have enemies. The mob, the Joker, even a random mugger…" she as cut off by the sudden, almost imperceptible tightening of Harve's embrace. Craning her neck, Rachel could see the effect her words had wrought on her lover. It was as if all the easy grace had been poured out his body. He looked strangely brittle, his shoulders tense, and the muscles of his jaw standing out in sharp relief against the planes of his face.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No, it's a fair question," he said. Taking a deep breath, he rolled onto his back and cast his gaze up to the ceiling.

"First I would get revenge."

"Revenge?" Rachel gave a short laugh devoid of humor, "Harvey, you wouldn't…I mean, you are the most non-violent person I've ever met. I always thought that was…refreshing about you."

"But I'm not," he said, refusing to be swayed from the subject now that it had arisen, "I have a dark side, Rachel, just like anyone else. If something happened to you, if someone hurt you, or, God forbid, if someone _killed_ you," he unconsciously tightened his embrace, "I think I would lose my mind."

For a moment, they sat in silence, his words heavy in the air.

"I wouldn't want that. If anything happened…I would want you to heal, to move on. You're not a man of vengeance; you're a man of justice."

"Some would say they're one and the same. That justice is just the name we made up to cover up the truth; that every single law was written just so people could have revenge."

"You of all people should know that's not true."

"Isn't it?" he said, propping himself up on one elbow, "What good have the laws done us in Gotham? The mob runs amok, everyone who can afford to now lives outside the city limits, and the ones who can't are afraid to go outside after dark. And it took a masked vigilante dressed as a _bat_ to show us how far we'd sunk. He accomplished more in a month than I have in my entire career, all because he doesn't obey the law. If I were half the man he is, I would have exterminated every last one of them." he bit off each word, his lips drawn back as if he was snarling. Rachel could feel his muscles tense beneath her, as if he would throw her off and begin the crusade singe handedly.

"Batman doesn't kill," she whispered

"But I would," he said. Rachel stiffened, "If they hurt you, I would."

"No. You're better than that, I know you are," she said.

"Am I?" said Dent, raking his free hand through his hair, "Sometimes I feel like there's another side of me. Just now, and once when I was…when I was questioning a suspect, I felt it. I've always tried to be good, to do the right thing even when it was hard. But sometimes I feel it, this _rage_, like there's another side of me that I've locked away. The side that could hurt, torture…kill."

On the nightstand sat the silver Liberty head coin that Harvey had so conscientiously removed from his pocket before Rachel had all but torn his clothes off and they had fallen, hot and desperate, onto the bed. He picked it up now, massaging it between his fingers, feeling the familiar contours of Liberty's delicate face and corkscrew curls. Two-sided, a rarity amongst coins, rarer still in a coin minted over eighty years before, the pride of his father's collection. From the day his father had placed it in his hand he had carried it on his person and, over time, a nearly superstitious attachment had grown in him towards it. A childish and unspoken belief that the coin embodied luck, his luck, the kind that came from always knowing how the chips would fall. Back in Internal Affairs it had taken on new meaning, the two-faced coin had become his mirror, the symbol of how he always managed to face the right way, wherever the wind might blow.

"Harvey, everyone has those thoughts," Rachel was saying, pulling him from his contemplation of the coin, "We all wonder what would happen if we gave in, if we took the law into our own hands. That's what makes us human," she placed a light kiss on his cheek, drawing his gaze away from the coin's mirror surface, "But it's not what makes us good. What makes us good is not giving in to those voices, believing that reason and justice will win in the end. And I know you are a good person. You're Gotham's White Knight," somehow, she managed to say it with total conviction, without a trace of irony.

He chuckled. "What does that make you? My squire?"

"Right now, whatever you want me to be," she said, snuggling into his shoulder and placing a a quick line of kisses from his collarbone, up the arch of his neck to his lips. There she dallied quite a bit longer, until they were both panting and breathless.

"I don't know what it is about you, Rachel, but around you I…" Harvey said, the creases now gone from his forehead. A faint flush colored his cheeks.

"Mmm?"

"Around you I feel… like a better person, like I can forget that darker side exists."

"Well then I'd better stick around then, hmm? So Big Bad Harv doesn't come and get you," Rachel said with a trace of mischief.

"Big Bad Harv?" Harvey laughed, "What kind of name is that?"

Rachel never did give him an answer, but as the night went one, Harvey wasn't one to complain.


	2. A Silent Guardian

The Silent Guardian

**Summary: **How hard would it be, really, for Gotham's DA to discover Batman's identity?

* * *

"Get me the accounts for Wayne Enterprises."

"Sir?"

"Everything for the past …three, no, four months."

"Is that even legal, sir?"

Harvey slowed is frenetic pace to look the aide, a Mr. Carlos Moralis, small man, no more than five foot seven, and several years younger than himself, in the eye. "If we're going to shut down the mob in this city, Mr. Moralis, we're going to have to cut off their food supply. Wayne Enterprises just entered into negotiations with Lao, one of Hong Kong's most notorious international money launderers. This may be our first lead into where Gotham's crime bosses are hiding their funds. As for the legality," he paused, considering, "Wayne Enterprises volunteered for an audit before entering into the negotiations. It was performed by the the state, which means…"

"We have the records on file," Carlos took off, leaving Harvey alone at the door to his office.

It was all true, of course. Dent could not afford to have his case denounced at a critical point, but he had his own reasons for investigating Wayne industries. Investigating Lao would only require accounts from the beginning of their negotiations, but Dent's instincts were telling him that all was not right behind the inscrutable exterior Wayne Enterprises.

Beginning three months before, company heir Bruce Wayne returns from the dead just in time to reclaim his inheritance, only to turn around and place the company in the competnent hands of one Lucius Fox, once of a minor department within the company that had been all but shut down. Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place, he turns to the life of a semi-retired playboy.

And though Bruce's socialite antics were on the cover of every tabloid in the city, it felt as if no one else in the city had noticed this transformation, except Dent. Even Rachel was closed-mouthed about it when he told her of his intentions to investigate her childhood friend's behavior.

"You're telling me that you don't see anything strange in Wayne's actions over the past few months?" he mentioned to her over lunch

"For the last time, that's not what I mean," she huffed, "I'm not saying Bruce is an easy man to understand, but I _know_ he's not doing anything to help the mob. In case you've forgotten, the mob killed his parents."

"Rachel, the man goes from declared dead, to the mastermind who prevents Wayne Enterprises from going public, to a rich playboy without a brain in his head. There must be something there."

"Harvey, trust me. Nothing is going to come out of these negotiations. Can't you just be happy that Wayne Enterprises is keeping Lao in the city long enough to track the cash flow?"

No, he wanted to say, but he could see that something else was clearly on Rachel's mind and she was in no mood to discuss her ex. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have even brought the man up, but something about Wayne grated on him, professionally and personally this man was a piece of a puzzle that he simply could not find a place for. The only businessman in the city, perhaps the country, who had no marks on his record, no lawsuits, no misdemeanor whatsoever. He was too clean.

Or perhaps Harvey was just growing paranoid, seeing enemies behind what might very well be not just innocent exterior, but an innocent man. Perhaps the man _had_ been changed by his disappearance from a serious youth to the feckless man who seemed to be enjoying his money for the first time.

Then again, nobody lasts long in Gotham without being more than a little paranoid.

* * *

Rachel was right, of course. The very next day Wayne Enterprises cut its ties with Lao's company, citing the city's investigation. Harvey would have continued the investigation on his own time but the mob had flaired up again and he was too busy over the following days to spend even a moment contemplating the enigma.

That is, until Moralis came back with the word on Wayne Enterprises' accounts and some very interesting, almost invisible, discrepancies.

"Sir, Mr. Dent, sir!" Moralis called, catching Dent in the hallways on the way back to his office. Under one arm he held a filefolder than that was bursting at the seams, and in his hand a single sheet of computer paper.

"Carlos, what have you been up these past few days?" Harvey said with an air of pleasant surprise, clapping the aide on the back.

"The Wayne audit, sir. Don't you remember?"

Harvey stopped just outside the door, "Carlos, Wayne Enterprises broke off the negotiations with Lao almost a week ago. We have Lao in custody. Didn't anyone tell you that the audit's unnecessary now?"

Carlos groaned, "You mean I've been reading myself blind for the last week for nothing?"

"Sorry, Carlos. It must have just slipped everyone's minds with everyone so busy on the Lao prosecution."

"Well, do you still want to see what I found?"

"You know, why not? Come into my office."

Harvey sat back behind his desk while Moralis flipped through what must have been hundreds of pages of printout, occasionally pointing out particular spikes or drops in Wayne stock. Everything seemed impeccable, which was almost suspicious in and of itself. But Harvey could sense that Moralis was building towards something and remained silent, fingers steepled with his index fingers pressed against his lips while the other man spoke.

"Mr. Dent, does Wayne Enterprises have any government contracts?"

"At this point I think you'd be better at answering that that I am, but no, as far as I know Wayne Enterprises is strictly private."

"Well, just after Mr. Wayne returned, a new project was opened, labeled as a government investment to provide cell phones for soldiers. It looks like millions are being pumped into this thing, but as far as I can tell the department has no employees except for Mr. Fox."

Harvey straightened, like a hunting dog that had caught the scent of blood, "And how much is Mr. Fox drawing from this project?"

"Nothing. There doesn't seem to be any production coming from this sector whatsoever, and for all the money going in, not a cent is coming out in profits," Moralis saw the gleam in Dent's eyes and grinned. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"We can't be sure yet, I want you to track that cash flow, find out where's its going, cross-reference it with what we know about the mob. See if you can get me that by the end of the day."

"Sure thing, sir, I'll get right on that," Moralis said, gathering up the folder and leaving the room just as Rachel pushed passed him.

"What was that?" she said, taking Moralis' vacated seat.

"Do you know if Wayne Enterprises has any government contracts?"

Rachel frowned, "Not that I know of, Bruce tends to avoid those deals, he says they come with too many stings attached. Why do you ask?"

Harvey recapped Moralis' report and by the end of it Rachel had a thoughtful frown on her face, "Have you considered that it might be a charity project? That would explain the lack of profit."

"Or maybe he's providing funds for the city's criminals, hush money, or security," Harvey retorted.

"Harvey, can't you just let it go? Bruce isn't doing anything illegal, at least Wayne Enterprises isn't. This isn't going to lead anywhere."

"And if it does?"

"Then I don't think its going to be anywhere that helps us. My God, Harvey, I already see his face on the front of every tabloid in the city, I don't need my boyfriend obsessing over Bruce too."

"I'm not obsessing," said Harvey, perhaps a little more frostily than he meant.

"Could have fooled me," she said, "I'm not saying throw out what you have, but right now we have _real_ leads on _real_ criminals, and we need all of your energy there. Anyway, Bruce's fundraiser, which he's been kind enough to throw for you I might add, is tomorrow. You can ask him yourself then."

It was the last they spoke of Bruce that day, but as Harvey lay in bed that night, Rachel's arm draped across his chest , thoughts of the playboy billionaire once again began to haunt him. Running one hand gently through Rachel's hair, he could not shake the feeling that he was missing something.

Exhaustion dragged his body down into the mattress, and his brain that had been rushing in overdrive, referencing and cross-referencing, assembling arguments, pouring over the records, was screaming for rest. His eyelids his slid shut and his fingers stilled , entangled in Rachel's soft brown hair. He slipped into the soft velvety darkness of sleep when, rising as if combed from the depths of his subconscious, a single phrase appeared.

_What would anyone need all that cash for, if not to fund the mob?_

The thought prickled at his consciousness but it was not enough to raise him from his slumber, his breathing deepened and the first shreds of dreams flitted across his consciousness, bringing color to his sleeping mind. when with them rose the an answer to a question he had not even realized he had been asking himself.

_Unless it was to _fight_ the mob._

Harvey's eyes flew open.

And the first missing piece slid into place.

* * *

The next day he worked through lunch, pulling every online file he could find on the Wayne family, specifically Bruce. At one point Rachel stuck her head in, and laughing asked why he looked so excited.

He muttered something about being anxious for the coming evening and, apparently satisfied with this answer, she left him in peace. He had lost the initial rush of certainty and by now had now nearly convinced himself that the idea was crazy. He just needed to find something that disproved it. When said aloud, the idea of the ridiculous playboy who had kidnapped the entire Russian ballet corps for a cruise on his yacht having any kind of dark side was ludicrous.

But the more he read, the harder it was to ignore.

Rachel had always assured him that Bruce had been good to her while they were dating , and Harvey dimly remember her mentioning soon after he found out that she had dated the airheaded heir that he was in fact a very honorable man who was deeply motivated by the suffering in the world. Harvey hadn't understood what she meant then and had forgotten the comment, until now.

Parent's killed while he was still a chld by a man with rumored connections to the mob, rumored to be more assassination than mugging gone wrong.

Top marks in school promptly squandered when the young man disappeared for years, with only sporadic reports in the following years. Some time in France, England, Egypt and then further east through Turkey into the heart of Asia. When asked where he had gone, he gave the usual college graduate answer, to "find himself", though most graduates had that pretty well figured out by the time they were thirty, unlike Mr. Wayne. After rescuing his parent's company and his own inheritance, he throws himself into a life of debauchery, for all the world like a man drunk on wealth.

Then, within a month of his return, a new figure appears on the Gotham stage, a masked vigilante in black who launches a personal crusade to take back the city from the scum that had overrun it for so long. Nothing is known of this mysterious figure except the barest statistics, male, presumably Caucasian, cleanshaven, light eyes, over six feet tall and heavily muscled. The press quickly dubs the silent guardian, "Batman" and the rest is history.

The man had motivation and means, but the evidence was all circumstantial unless someone managed to unmask him. And that man was certainly not going to be Harvey Dent.

More here about why Harvey is satisfied and won't go further.

Closing the file with a sigh, he looked up the clock just to see it stike two. Lunch was over, back to work. As he fed the files and printouts into into the shredder, he could not help but smile wryly. He would certainly be seeing Bruce Wayne in a different light this evening, whether or not he deserved it. But for now he would lay this pet project to rest.

* * *

That night a playboy billionaire easily subdues Gotham's DA and drags him to safety just minutes before Batman appears on the scene and saves a young woman from a fatal fall. Some of the dazed guests note later that they heard him shout a name before he leapt after her, a level of personal interest that would be worth their millions to some, but which is quickly forgotten.

As events in Gotham spin out of control, Harvey Dent is comforted by the knowledge that even if the worst should happen, Rachel would have a guardian angel looking out for her.

Until a fateful night in a warehouse, surrounded by hundreds of barrels of oil rigged to blow, he hears a entirely different kind of explosion as the door bursts open. A figure in black Kevlar and a cape dashes through the door, and hesitates.

In that moment, Harvey feels the excruciating agony of his heart being torn apart one piece at a time, all in the space of a second.

"NO! You're not supposed to save me!" he screams, and keep screaming until his voice is raw, clawingagainst the bonds that tie him as the Dark Knight's moment of uncertainty ends and he dives into motion, sprinting forward to pull the White Knight to safety. On the other end of the line he hears the relief in her voice, her last words.

"Harvey, its ok, because-" static roars through the connection and the line goes dead but he is moving, or being moved at full speed across the room as the barrels detonate one after the other and the room boils with the heat of the flames.

But he does not see it all in the split second it takes place. Time slows, he watches almost with curiosity as a single ember float towards him as he is dragged away on Batman's shoulder, he turns his head to avoid it and feels the light impact and the sudden seering agony of fire as it consumes his oil-soaked skin, scalding and melting…

Down to the bone.

He screams as Batman pulls him from the wreck of the building, agony consuming his soul.

He hardly feels the burns, he doesn't feel the jarring impact as he is thrown to the ground and Batman douses the flames that consume him.

He is consumed by a different fire, her last words, her yes, her moment of realization…

…her relief.

That he would be saved instead of her. He howls his anguish as his his skin bubbles and cracks, the unfeeling Knight that he had trusted Rachel's life with looms above him.

A silent guardian.

But not Rachel's.


	3. On Sleepless Roads the Sleepless Go

**Chapter Title**: On Sleepless Roads the Sleepless Go

**Summary**: Harvey wanders the city for the first time since his mutilation.

Chapter title taken from Jimmy Eat World's "Hear You Me"

* * *

His first night in the city he walked the streets and alleys beneath the suspended highways, smoke from the sewers like acid yellow pillars against the tainted street lights. It seemed as if everything in this city was tainted.

_Does your face hurt?_

'_Cause it's killing me._

(Laughter)

It was, though.

Killing him.

Exposed tendons and nerve, the nails-on-the-chalkboard sensation of air rushing in through the side of of his ruined nose, the dry grating of his teeth in the cold air. Every breath of wind was agony, and the steam that struck his face as he wandered through the floating smoke was like setting it on fire once again.

He had not truly slept since that night with his arms wrapped around her. The soft scent of soap mixed with her one small vanity, a dash of an expensive perfume that he knew hadn't bought her, mingling in the air he breathed.

The last time he had seen the darkness behind his eyelids (though he would not call it true sleep) he had woken to a different scent, the sickly-sweet odor of gasoline and the crackling of her voice on the speaker.

He wondered if he would ever sleep again.

The blaze had burned away the delicate flesh of his eyelids but mercilessly left the vision in his eye intact. Constantly staring, eye lolling in its socket, there was the other agony of air, the searing burn against his unprotected eyeball. Impossible to blink, impossible to sleep with one eye always open. The first night in the hospital he had screamed himself into an uneasy state of unconscious, one eye open and staring as if waiting for unseen enemies.

He wondered if he would spend the rest of his life this way, one eye always open and staring, waiting for those the merciful side of the coin had let live, enemies always at his back. Wondered if his life had in fact, changed at all.

* * *

It began to rain. First, a cooling mist that turned to a gentle downpour, soothing the burning of his flesh, bringing welcome moisture to his exposed eye. On the other side of his face, it plastered his hair down and trickled down his cheek like tears.

He did not have much further to walk, and when he arrived at his destination, the sky was turning the dull gray of false dawn. The building before him was swathed in obnoxious yellow police tape but the street had already been cleared of the debris. A lone taxi chugged by, not even pausing at the sight of the man who stood at the entrance of the burnt-out structure.

There were no guards beside the warning tape, and Harvey pushed by it as if they meant less than cobwebs. As he penetrated further in he was greeted by more signs, warning of possible collapse. They too were ignored.

He climbed the blackened stairs until he reached the roof, where, here and there, he was forced to dodge crumbling concrete.

It was not hard to find the center of the carnage. In the distance, something glinted with the glow of tarnished metal. Here he stopped over the twisted remains of what had once been a chair and beside it a white mark in the rough form of a circle. With a start he realized that the small circle was miraculously unaffected by the scars of the explosion. Slowly he removed the coin for his pocket and placed it, dark side up, over the mark.

He didn't know what moved him to do this but and slowly he knelt to look closer at what he had wrought. The coin seemed to disappear into the darkness of the blackened concrete.

This is where she died.

_My answer…_

He collapsed to his knees and then to all fours, his fingers bent to claws, his nails scraping against the ground.

_My answer is yes…_

"She's gone."

It took him a moment to realize that the ragged cry ringing through the air was his own.


End file.
